Mora

Putative class representatives Ana Mora, David Seals, Timothy Luddington and Richard Handrich filed a consolidated amended complaint on behalf of themselves and others similarly situated against their former employer, Big Lots Stores, Inc., and its affiliate, PNS Stores, Inc. (collectively Big Lots), operators of 178 closeout retail stores in California, asserting a cause of action for failure to pay overtime compensation and *499 various other wage-and-hour, meal and rest-time claims, as well as a claim for unfair business practices. Plaintiffs assert Big Lots uniformly misclassifies its store managers as exempt employees based on their job description alone rather than on consideration of actual work performed, which involves a significant amount of time on nonexempt tasks. The trial court denied their motion to certify a class of present and former Big Lots store managers finding the company does not operate its stores in a standardized manner and has no systematic practice of misclassification of managers. In light of the great latitude properly afforded the trial court in granting or denying class certification, we affirm, finding no abuse of discretion.

FACTUAL AND…